It remains a mystery to me why certain folk believe they are the only ones who feel they can shape Noosa’s future – and why they feel they should do it in their own mature, white male image.
In 2014, Noosa Council decided to close down Noosa Biosphere Ltd (NBL) together with its many community engagement activities and replace it with an entirely new organisation, the Noosa Biosphere Reserve Foundation, with a new Constitution structured to be self-perpetuating and to keep the community out.
The NBL, while far from perfect (few organisation achieve perfection), was structured in a democratic and open way, had much greater inclusion and community engagement and, in terms of its age and gender profiles, included many younger people with women assuming half or more of the governance board positions.
When NBL was summarily disposed of after Noosa elected its new Council in 2014, a new model was imposed to suit the desires of those who believed that they, and they alone, were capable of securing Noosa’s future.
The new but certainly not improved model turned to mature (as in ageing) white males for leadership. For the rest of us, and that’s the most of us, it was all pretty insular and off-putting. It meant that good people didn’t get involved – in fact, they weren’t even invited.
Like many other people, I found this alienating and was reluctant to make public my views because there was also an air of intimidation suffusing the new NBRF.
So, like many people, I didn’t speak out because of fear of an adverse negative impact on my professional work. For other people, there was a fear of backlash on their businesses, grants and partnership opportunities.
I personally have no wish to go back to a very dark time which I have been happy to leave behind but, on the other hand, it saddens me to see what is still going on. So here goes.
It is on the public record that Noel Playford, Michael Gloster and Tony Wellington were in opposition to the governance structure of Noosa Biosphere Ltd. This was a structure set up in the dying days of the pre-amalgamation Noosa Council and built upon a community engagement model with the added layer of a Governance Board to coordinate activities and strategies across a number of sector boards with their own designated community interests.
Its establishment included having the Council as the only ‘member’. This was to ensure that baseline funding and support was provided by the newly amalgamated Sunshine Coast Council. External bodies provided additional funding.
But while NBL was funded and supported by professional staff from Sunshine Coast Council it was never controlled by the Council.
After de-amalgamation and after the election of the restored Noosa Council, as NBL Chair I met with Noel Playford prior to his taking up the office of mayor. He stated: ‘I will never say I am working with NBL’. It was a statement that could be seen as him having a particular bias prior to any process to review NBL.
I understand that, in the first weeks of Cr Playford taking office, he went to a councillors’ meeting and said he wanted to sack the governance board. He was told he couldn’t and the next week he called a review. It had short timelines, a highly structured and limited format for presentations, no public sharing of submissions and no independent summary of the content of the submissions.
The council working party comprised Noel Playford and Tony Wellington (who was on the record as opposing NBL and who had been publicly critical of its work), Frank Pardon (on the record as supporting NBL) and Bob Abbot (supposedly independent but in my experience who ended up not being so).
None of the newly-elected councillors, who may have been more likely to be independent, were on the working party. There was also no outside independent voice involved in the process.
Noel Playford called together the community sector board chairs for a meeting but did not invite me as Chair nor the governance board to that or any other meetings. In fact he refused to meet with the NBL government board until near the end of the review process. This was in a session ‘facilitated’ by someone he had selected without consultation with us.
At public meetings, there were disdainful responses and remarks made by Cr Playford and even Cr Abbot. Throughout the process, Cr Playford and the council never publicly thanked the NBL or sector boards for their work. The only councillor who did on the public record was Cr Frank Wilkie.
While I don’t want to make meeting notes public, I think this all demonstrated a certain intention from the start. Cr Playford and the review working party would never enter into any discussion about positive aspects of the model and achievements of NBL or ways to evolve the model as a cross-sectoral enterprise.
What the power players managed to do was, despite their arguments that the Biosphere management should not be controlled by or involve council, to set up an organisation – the NBRF – whereby they now control the agenda from outside Council while having the organisation wholly funded by Council. Nice work guys!
This small group of men have never provided any evidence or other models from around the globe to justify the Constitution and structure of NBRF. Given what has been going on over the past four years of NBRF, there is no evidence that their model is capable of effective operations. All directors have changed since it was instituted.
The Noosa Community Biosphere Association was established to be an adjunct community-focussed body but it has been riven by problems in its relationship with NBRF. Its most recent president has just resigned expressing her frustration with the relationship.
The net result of all this is that there is no group who has capacity to prepare and manage a cohesive and coherent plan and strategies for meeting the objectives of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
What could happen now?
Biosphere Reserve management should be a partnership between government, community and business, not a separate community organisation set up by Council and running the show independently and without accountability to anyone but itself.
The Noosa community sector boards (which came under the Noosa Biosphere Ltd umbrella) and the partnership program were acknowledged by UNESCO as being excellent partnership models but currently there is no model for community engagement.
There needs to be a coordinated approach for Biosphere Reserve management and strategy which should be resourced with professional support from within Noosa Council and operate according to the highest standards. Programs that should be coordinated in particular include Biosphere related tourism, certification of products and programs and environmental and sustainability monitoring programs.
Successful biosphere reserves internationally are generally funded by governments (or different levels of government) and have professional staff (who may have expertise in environmental management, communications, public programs and community engagement, accreditation programs etc).
They often do have community groups and foundations aligned with such. Professional work should be carried about by professionals, working with business, community and volunteer groups.
It is time for Noosa Council to coordinate an independent and consultative review process in preparation for the review and this should include biosphere management structures past, present and future.
It is also worth noting that the original Biosphere Reserve proposal was initiated and officially submitted by Noosa Council and had to be endorsed through all three levels of government. It demonstrates the required involvement of government, and one would imagine such endorsement would be required for the submission of the 10-year review currently underway.
As some people may know, when I tried to discuss what was happening at the time of the Noosa Biosphere review I was designated by Noel Playford as the ‘new John Lobb’. (John is a persistent critic of Noosa Council.)
Cr Playford never thanked me or any other NBL folk for the years of effort we had put into taking a structure the former Noosa Council had originated and made it work under the Sunshine Coast Council despite a sustained guerrilla campaign from Playford, Gloster, Wellington and others.
We know the tactics used to undermine critics of these power brokers in the past – they have their letter writers ready to go once there’s any criticism and they attack and undermine vocal individuals… so I guess it helps to be prepared.
Dr Sue Davis BA, GDTeach, GDAdmin, MA, PhD
